Wow, you know, I had heard of GoogleEarth before but has never taken the time to delve in and see what it's all about. I love that this class affords (and forces upon) us the opportunity to spend time with the assortment of tools out there. I bet that I wouldn't have checked out (or even known about) half of the sites on our list this week, had someone not physically gone online and put my nose in front of the computer. It's also nice to know that there are competing programs and tools out there. For example, I've been using SlideShare to upload my powerpoint presentations so I can link to them in Moodle. The only problem is that if I want to make a change to a slide, I must open the original, make the change, delete the old version from SlideShare and upload the newer version. I find this week with 280 Slides that I can create and publish my presentations within the program which means that I can change them without all of the hassle! (Now to switch everything over...in my spare time!)
In exploring new tools, I've also found myself sharing more and more about what I'm learning with my colleagues. Just today in a curriculum conference among 4 science teachers at my school, I was explaining how GoogleDocs works to another teacher and how all of our shared curriculum planning (we're working on our greenhouse curriculum at the moment) should be shared within an online program instead of one of us acting as secretary and sending email copies to the others to have to save to each personal drive. (Maybe this is because I always get stuck as the secretary!) Without having the opportunity to cruise the tools and read other cohorts' reactions I would probably not feel as comfortable encouraging their use with my school colleagues.
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Hi Ann, I just love your enthusiasm for everything new that you come across. I've told several people already about the Forensics course you and your colleagues developed. Would you mind if I told the person who puts together the Stritch magazine? She may wish to interview you. Incidentally, I reported the problem we had the other night with Melissa's audio to WiziQ. They responded that after looking at their logs the problem was most likely a conflict between WiziQ and her microphone's driver. I'm amazed that they looked into the problem so promptly and actually responded.
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